


Until He Be Eased

by joan_waterhouse



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Mental Illness, Suicidal Thoughts, grandiose delusions, modern!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joan_waterhouse/pseuds/joan_waterhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctors told Richard he was one of the patients at The Realm, a respected mental institution, where his grandfather had been a patient before him. But sometimes everything seemed so grand, surely he must be living in a royal palace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until He Be Eased

**Author's Note:**

  * For [highfantastical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highfantastical/gifts).



> Dear highfantastical, I based this on your prompt "Richard II --- Henry/Richard, IN A PSYCHIATRIC UNIT. In any sense of that phrase, at any time. Or gen, in this setting - also fascinating." 
> 
> I hope you like what I came up with. :)
> 
> Thank you to [venivincere](http://archiveofourown.org/users/venivincere) and [jelazakazone](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/jelazakazone) for the beta.

The curtain drew back to reveal a golden summer morning. Richard had been awake for a while, quietly waiting in bed until it was time to rise. That day he struggled more than usual to tell reality from fantasy. The curtain was real, so was his pillow. The sunlight was real. The handsome man in the white coat was real too, but there it began to be tricky. The man said, "Good morning, Richard," so calmly and reassuringly that for a moment, Richard believed him. Then the man produced a glass of water and a handful of pills. Something wasn't right.

When he was little, every Sunday Richard's family would dress up in their best clothes and take the bus to visit Grandpa. They couldn't barge in on him unannounced. They had to wait for the right time. There were procedures. Before they entered the gates, his mum would make sure Richard's little tie sat straight and his hair was tidy. Only then they would they walk along the gravel path up to the house where his grandfather lived. 

The Realm was an airy sort of building. Large windows, white curtains, white walls, filled with a calm atmosphere just this side of oppressive. Their arrival would be recorded in a huge, leather-bound book before they were admitted. Everything was so much bigger than it was at home. The windows reached up, up, up to the high ceiling and were framed by wispy curtains. Grandpa sat in a high backed chair overlooking the garden. Busy people bustled around him nearby. 

Grandpa would tell Richard stories about knights and ladies. Stories of wars and battle. Stories of famine and prosperous harvest. Grandpa's stories bursted with so much colourful detail Richard could listen to them for hours. "One day," his grandfather said, "one day, when I'm gone, you will take my place." It was filled with so much hope and promise, Richard could only nod his head and resolve to make his Grandpa proud.

And then one Sunday everybody wore black and spoke in whispers. And Richard squared his tiny shoulders and prepared himself to bear his destiny like he was supposed to. At first his mother wouldn't let him move into his Grandpa's palace. She cried and insisted on him being sensible, on going to school. But how could he, when a whole kingdom went without a ruler, now that his grandfather was dead? For years advisers came and went. They talked to Richard, asked questions and consulted with his mother until one day they finally saw he wouldn't be dissuaded.

Dr York told Richard he was one of the patients at The Realm, a respected mental institution, where his grandfather had been a patient before him. Richard's mother was not a lady but a seamstress. His father, a common metal worker, had died years ago. Every morning at six thirty Nurse Bolingbroke would bring Richard his pills and help him get ready. Richard would have breakfast with the other patients and a therapy session after that. Then followed lunch and a walk in the garden before it was time for tea and bed. 

But sometimes everything seemed so much grander that it could be nothing but a royal palace. Surely his grandfather hadn't been mad? Surely Richard was king just like he had been? Surely, surely, this was his palace!

Whenever one of these realities presented itself to him as the only possibility, Richard took hold of it with both hands. He would have enjoyed being the seamstress' son just as much as he enjoyed being king. Just so long as there were no doubt. But it all blended together and he couldn't tell which reality was more likely.

The cold air, once his blanket had been taken away, filled Richard with the fresh resolve that mornings so often brought. That day would be different; it was a blank slate still, and Richard would be able to remember who he was and where he was and why he was there. 

Every breath in elevated him above the whole world until he could see clearly how everything was connected to everything else. The moment seemed to stretch for hours. The world around him was frozen, bare and naked before his gaze: his whole court was playing an elaborate trick on him. And Bolingbroke, his own cousin, posing as a nurse - his nurse, posing as his cousin - holding out the glass of water and the pills. 

"Here," he said. "Take your pills, Richard."

Over at the sink, drops of water were beating out the seconds. One, two, three, then five, ten, fifteen. Bolingbroke waited patiently.

"What will they do?"

"They will help you."

Richard closed his eyes. Once he had overheard Bolingbroke talking to one of the other nurses. "He's fascinating isn't he? How he knows to choose the perfect spot in the common room where the sun will light up his hair like a halo. How he entertains the other patients with these elaborate stories, transforming whatever mundane thing happened the day before into a majestic fairytale." 

_They will take away the fairytale_ , Richard wanted to say, but instead, just asks, "How?"

"They will help you feel like yourself again."

Feel like himself. Doesn't one always feel like oneself by definition? And who would this _himself_ be anyway? How can little pills hold the answer to such a question?

"Very well. What do you think? Upon swallowing these, will I be king or will I be beggar? Royal or mad? Which side of the coin will it be?"

"I promise you, it will be fine." Bolingbroke took a deep breath. "Will you please just take your pills, Richard?"

Richard focussed on the concrete, unmistakeable realness of the cracks in the black and white tiled floor. This, at least, was unchangeable. They were sharp edged under Richard's toes. Maybe it would be nice to have certainty. Maybe if he did what he was told, everything would turn out for the best.

"Give me the pills." He held out his hands to receive the pills. Then he went over to the small mirror above the sink, pushed his toothbrush aside, set down the glass of water and lined up the pills in a neat row. 

"I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed." One by one, he put them on his tongue, lifted the glass of water and demonstrably, dutifully swallowed. His reflection stared back unshaven, unfamiliar, unchanged. 

"I suppose it will take a while," Richard said. "In the meantime, will you fetch me my shaving kit? I'm sure you'll agree, whoever will be left of me once this drug takes effect, will be better off not looking like this." He swept a nonchalant gesture in the direction of the mirror. 

Bolingbroke rolled his eyes, but produced a chain of keys from his pocket, slipped out into the corridor and returned moments later with the shaving kit. When Richard reached for it, Bolingbroke cut him short.

"I'll do that," he said and held the box out of Richard's reach. "You know I'd get into trouble, if I let you do it yourself." 

Bolingbroke's hands were gentle and warm, the blade sharp and cool. The room was silent except for their breaths and the scraping of razor against skin. Every now and again Bolingbroke would mutter an instruction, "Lift your chin… yeah, just so," or, "turn your head, please," always accompanied by a guiding touch. 

Through the window Richard saw the groundsman pruning roses. Above him, soft clouds slowly drifted by. From up there he would be able to see far beyond the garden, beyond the village, beyond the county. By day's end these clouds will have drifted out to sea and over foreign lands.

Richard could barely even remember the council flat he grew up in, he'd spent so many years here. He knew every square inch of the Realm; he knew little else. 

There had been a heat wave one summer. The temperature had been in the nineties. A small group had taken a walk down to the river to cool off. Attending staff still wore their regulation uniform, but Richard remembered distinctly that for once Bolingbroke had left the top buttons of his shirt open. It was just revealing enough to show the faint beginning of some chest hair. 

"Do you ever travel?" Richard asked.

"I went to Israel last year. We went swimming in the Dead Sea."

"I was on holiday in Torquay with my mother when I was six," Richard said lamely and only realised how pathetic it sounded once he'd said it.

"You're already feeling less confused aren't you?" Bolingbroke asked, putting away the shaving things with a tentative smile. "See, I told you taking your pills would be good for you."

How dared Bolingbroke look so smug, so incredibly pleased with himself? He must think he knew exactly how to play Richard, to get him to do whatever he had in mind.

"Just because I'm less-" But he wasn't less anything. More? More himself? Doubtful. He was _fewer_. Fewer thoughts. Fewer people. Fewer possibilities. "I wouldn't say I'm less confused. Tamed, maybe. Is that what it's about? Taming me?"

Bolingbroke made a face as though he'd bitten into something unpleasant at a dinner party and tried to hide the fact, but showed no inclination to answer. The less Bolingbroke reacted the more Richard wanted to punch him in the face. It was getting hard to think.

"Every morning you come in here and you hand me the instrument to my own destruction. And I comply. Why? Just because I'm told to. I am already tame! I take the poison I'm handed and with a couple pills…!" 

Bolingbroke made a step toward him and reached out a hand to lead Richard to the bed.

"No! _You_ kill the king. Every day you argue him out of me, poison him, depose him, belittle him with your mocking smiles until there's nothing left of me but this hollow shape of a man who's seen nothing of the world outside of these walls."

The room was spinning. The floor was tipping. Richard was tipping over. The last thing he saw was Bolingbroke outlined against the ceiling.

When Richard woke up it was dark outside. Faint moonlight shone through the window. The stars glimmered. On the nightstand beside him sat the journal Dr York had given him a while ago. "It'll help to get your thoughts out," he had said.

He flipped it open and leafed to the first empty page; he wrote: 

_Sometimes am I king. Other times I am…_

The ink bled into the page. If he looked closely he could see tiny scraggly lines reaching out from all the places where the tip of the pen had left small tears in the paper. What else was there to say? He was just so tired; every tiny move felt like dragging his limbs through honey. Finally he wrote: 

_nothing._

Richard closed the book, laid aside the pen, breathed in the night air. It spread through his body and everything it touched was made holy. He breathed out and was pulled back down into his bed. He breathed in and in until everything around him glowed golden. Maybe if he just tried hard enough, he would never have to exhale again. Maybe if he held his breath, he could stay king forever.


End file.
